"Mike's entitled to his opinion," Banner told ESPN Radio's "Mike & Mike", per The Plain Dealer. "He ran the team for three years and was able to do what he believed in. It's our turn trying to do what we think is right. Obviously wouldn't have done this if we agreed with his comments."

During his rant, Holmgren intimated that it was possible first-year coach Rob Chudzinski didn't stand up to Banner and fight to keep his best offensive player. Banner emphasized Friday that the Browns coach very much was part of the "collaborative decision" to make the trade.

"I think the most important thing for me to say is we don't do anything with Chud not right in the middle of every discussion, every evaluation,"' Banner said. "Every single time I got off the phone with (Indianapolis Colts general manager) Ryan Grigson I went down, reported to him where we're at. He's a very strong believer in where we're at and where we're headed and how this is going to help us."

Now that the front office men are done (hopefully) prodding each other, Chudzinski is left to deal with the most difficult repercussion of the trade:

Convince an entire locker room to fight for 14 more games when the bosses upstairs already started working on 2014.